From the end of the Civil War (1861-1865) up until the turn of the century is known as "The Gilded Age". Poked fun of because of the rampant epidemic of corruption, Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner coined the term: "The Gilded Age," and began calling it that. This era, although it was probably one of the lesser known, was extremely important to what is now modern America. "It was a time of dynamic change in various areas, including politics, business, labor unions, race relations, intellectual history, the role of women, foreign affairs, technology, etc" (Mark). .
The business world of large national corporations gave rise to what modern days business consist of today. National brand names, building of national communication and transportation systems, and the railroad, defined this time period. A national market place was created in this nation connecting west coast to east coast together. Technologies changed the way businesses would run forever, managers and shareholders filled the economy. .
Alliances between big business and politics, machine politics, lead to a corrupt system of mutual bargaining. New York's political boss, Boss Tweed, twisted and bought elections, and from this stole large amounts of money from the ignorant. Unfortunately the cities around the nation had become corrupt with such people; the Pendelton Act in 1883 was created to protect jobs with no concern for the party in power. This act helped to denigrate corrupted officials. .
Growing bigger the businesses started to form monopoly powers, because of this people began to create economic and social groups. Among the groups were Farmers like the Grange, Populists disputed for more railroad regulation, and also Free Silver coinage to create inflation to help debtors. Antitrust regulations came out of The Interstate Commerce Act. Labor unions like the Knights of Labor, and the American Federation of Labor started unions to fight big businesses.
